


make me eternal, there in your smile

by moonbeatblues



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, as a treat, little a beauyasha, this is. similar to my other au but just different enough i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22449076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: jester’s eyes are enormous. “i feel like i’ve been pulled towards you since we met. is that weird?”“jester—”jester’s hands are cold— she lets go of her mug and reaches across, holds beau by the face, fingers hooked behind her ears. “do you feel like that, too?”
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 4
Kudos: 96





	make me eternal, there in your smile

**Author's Note:**

> title is from spring by angel olsen
> 
> from a tumblr prompt: flower shop/tattoo parlor beaujes (which is similar to my other au, so i wanted to have a little about beau and the meaning of flowers)

“beau,” jester says, eyes like the moon. “i will absolutely give you a tattoo.”

“great, uh—” her neck feels hot. “how much?”

“nothing!” jester’s voice rises into something almost tangibly sharp. “i would never charge a friend.”

it’s a small town, and jester is the friendliest person beau has ever met. poor orly.

“that doesn’t seem like a solid business practice.”

jester taps her on the cheek, fingers cold, and it buzzes. when beau looks, her lips are pursed a little. she looks thoughtful, sad almost. like she knows why.

“i am not charging you, beau.” she says, soft. “come over after your shift, and we can talk about designs.”

—

jester circles around the desk, a swing of blue and silver.

“it’s nice that this one is for you, you know? not to remember someone else.” she looks at beau squarely. “it can just be about you, about wanting something. it’s okay.”

beau blinks, thinks about the spray of white flowers curling over jester’s shoulder. promise, a return to happiness. hope. (jester’s fingers tracing the sketches in her symbols binder, thoughtful.)

“yeah.”

“i’m glad i can help you with it.” jester keeps watching her, too serious, too pretense-less. “i’m glad you asked me.”

she swallows. on the desk, over the sketch, jester’s hand laces into hers.

“yeah. me too.”

—

it’s mostly quiet, the actual thing.

there’s the rattle of the gun, and jester asks if she’s okay every so often, but mostly it’s quiet.

her hearing flares in and out with this wash when the gun’s on her. the blood in her ears sounds like the ocean. fitting.

beau manages not to look at it, not to risk jester’s work by trying to sit up. easier, maybe, because jester’s right hand is splayed flat along her torso, holding her down.

she closes her eyes and thinks of the sketch.

waves, made of parallel lines, curving into one another, all soft motion.

simple, black lines. she feels jester trace them, then again, and again. it burns like clear fire.

—

beau nurses her water. she feels hot, again, all over, feverish. like her nerves are prickling.

“maybe you should stay over, tonight.”

“what?”

she tries to sit up and jester _tsks_ apprehensively at her, presses her back down with a hand and reaches for the roll of wrap again.

“see— you’ll fiddle with it too much. you always do.”

jester lays the wrap along her side, pressing the lotion down coolly.

maybe on a better day, or even earlier on this one, it’d be easier, but jester’s words read like _annoyed_ and like _you can’t be left alone_ , and it makes her ears burn.

“i’ll make sure you keep off of it, and put more lotion on for you.”

she thinks of the tank top pulled up almost to her armpits right now, about wearing that and padding sleepily around jester’s apartment, jester watching her like she’s done once or twice, eyes dark and latent.

“beau.” jester’s eyes track all over her face.

she hasn’t stayed over since yasha left— what if she goes only to find that all the familiarity’s seeped out of it, somehow.

the shop’s closed, right now— beau only goes in for an hour or so to check on the greenhouse for cad when he’s too busy, takes samples and checks for any improvement in the sick planters.

work, still, but with nothing to show for it. jester can’t come by and coo at the blooms in the window, can’t ask beau what this one means, and then what it means if you put these two together, and so on.

there’s nothing she has to give her, not when it’s this cold, this quiet, this slow.

“ _beau_ ,” jester says again. she has that sad, funny look in her eye again. “let me help you.”

the wrap crinkles when she inhales and again when she she lets out the same breath in a huff.

“okay.”

her voice saws like the gate to the garden, a traitorous, croaky thing. jester takes both of beau’s hands in hers.

—

they’re in the kitchen, and jester’s been quiet for a long time. beau strides back and forth, making her tea and jester’s cocoa. she thinks jester’s watching her hands, mostly, as they work.

when she passes the mug to jester and takes a seat, jester doesn’t even look down at it. her fingers curl and uncurl on the handle, the rim.

“do you ever feel, like, magnetic?”

beau’s feet slip on the bar of the stool— sue her, it’s cold enough to wear socks to bed. “uh—”

“pulled towards something, i mean.” jester’s eyes are enormous. “i feel like i’ve been pulled towards you since we met. is that weird?”

“jester—”

jester’s hands are cold— she lets go of her mug and reaches across, holds beau by the face, fingers hooked behind her ears. “do you feel like that, too?”

she leans forward fast, almost pushing jester back a little in her own chair. her elbows skate frictionlessly on the granite of the counter as she holds onto jester’s wrists.

there’s still lotion drying cold and tingly on her bare side. she feels raw, somehow, cracked open between the ribs and spilling something furtive onto the hardwood.

“yes. yeah.”

she knows they’re going to kiss, then, and her heart does this funny thing where it slows down instead of picking up like she thought it would. jester’s eyelashes fan her cheeks. their noses brush.

listen, it’s not like jester salivates vanilla or what the fuck ever. her mouth tastes like the milk she’d just drank, before this, and how mouths taste in the middle of the night. it doesn’t matter. it’s jester.

—

“it’s funny,” jester says, in the dark. “i thought you liked yasha.”

beau’s on her back, mostly, with jester tucked into her side. the side higher in the air still burns that jittery kind of warm, but lower down jester runs her fingers over her hipbone and it’s such a salve she can hardly open her eyes.

“i did,” beau says, to the ceiling. “i _do_ , i—” she swallows. “it’s weird.”

jester hums, sounding strange. deliberately neutral. it’s a sound that doesn’t resonate in her throat properly, sits more in her nose. an unhappy sound.

“i like you, too,” she amends quickly. “i always have. i was just scared.”

“are you still?”

_yes_ , she thinks, _always_. jester’s fingertips dip into the waistband of her shorts and she jumps.

“not so much. not anymore.”

jester smiles so sweet into beau’s neck she can feel it, like honey in her veins.

“i didn’t want to ask,” she says. she presses harder with one fingertip, drags a swirl across beau’s abdomen. “but why the waves?”

“uh.” beau closes her eyes. “they make me think of nicodranas.”

“oh.”

jester’s quiet for a long moment.

“momma really likes you, you know.” she finally says, scratches a little at beau’s stomach, soft. tickly.

“oh, yeah?” her heart catches up to the moment earlier, in the kitchen, finally.

“yeah. she always asks when you’re coming back.”

“oh.”

there’s this weird feeling in her chest like that clean sort of fire again, warm and raw.

jester goes quiet again, even longer this time.

“i used to imagine her and dad moving to a house on the beach, with big windows and lots of curtains.”

she closes her eyes and pictures it, so open that the moonlight washes all the way through it at night.

“i still think about it, sometimes,” jester says. “but it’s not momma and dad anymore, it’s us. is that weird?”

“no,” beau says immediately, almost fierce. behind her eyes, the waves curl, merge and spread again in those same parallel lines. “no. not at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> i’m @seafleece on tumblr, come say hi


End file.
